A THOUSAND WORDS: THEMES AND TRENDS IN HOME FRONT POSTER PROPAGANDA OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR A Thesis by CHRISTOPHER C. THOMAS Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2007 Major Subject: History A THOUSAND WORDS: THEMES AND TRENDS IN HOME FRONT POSTER PROPAGANDA OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR A Thesis by CHRISTOPHER C. THOMAS Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved by: Chair of Committee, Arnold Krammer Committee Members, Chester Dunning Robert Shandley Head of Department, Walter Buenger May 2007 Major Subject: History iii ABSTRACT A Thousand Words: Themes and Trends in Home Front Poster Propaganda of the Second World War. (May 2007) Christopher C. Thomas, B.A., Arizona State University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Arnold Krammer Poster propaganda is one of the most memorable and enduring legacies of the Second World War. These artistic creations were strongly influenced by social and cultural paradigms as well as corresponding military events. Previous scholarship on propaganda has largely overlooked the role of posters and propaganda efforts on the home front, a gap that this study seeks to fill. The purpose of this study is to compare home front posters produced by the major nations involved in the European theatre and discern any trends or patterns that have a larger significance. Each poster in the sample was arranged chronologically by country. The area of emphasis (recruiting, production, etc.) and appeal (duty, guilt, fear, hate, etc.) for each poster was then recorded and analyzed. The analyses revealed several significant trends and patterns. The most important of these is that posters, regardless of which country produced them, tended to appeal to negative emotions (hate, fear, etc.) when the war was going badly and positive emotions (patriotism, duty, etc.) when the war was being won. Even when the areas of emphasis remained the same, the images, rhetoric and overall emotional tone of posters iv changed depending on the corresponding war situation. In other words, what a government said was not always as important as how they said it. This trend is equally significant today. Although posters have disappeared as a major propaganda tool, nations still fight wars and still carry out propaganda campaigns, therefore, if relationship between propaganda and the conduct of war presented in this study is applied to modern campaigns it provides the public with information that propaganda intends to keep secret: the truth about the war. Previous scholarship has mentioned this connection between propaganda methods and military operations, but as previously mentioned, these studies neglect both the home front and the poster, choosing to focus on propaganda directed at the enemy. Other patterns, such as the use of humor and religion in posters, are briefly touched on and provide possible areas for future research. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT………………………………………………………............... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………… v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION………………………………………….. 1 II NAZI GERMANY………………………………………….. 14 III THE SOVIET UNION……………………………………… 38 IV THE UNITED STATES…………………………………….. 62 V GREAT BRITAIN…………………………………. ………. 85 VI CONCLUSION……………….................................. ………. 105 REFERENCES……………………………………………………................ 110 APPENDIX………………………………………………………………….. 115 VITA…………………………………………………………………………. 142 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Even the strongest powers of reasoning are capable of being at the mercy of emotions1 -Michael Balfour In the early months of the Second World War, Germany’s propaganda machine printed millions of posters assuring the people of an inevitable German victory. By the close of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, the posters assuring Germany of certain victory were replaced by posters that declared, “Victory at any cost!” By the end of 1944 these posters were again replaced by others that warned, “Victory or Bolshevism.” The German propaganda campaign, like the German war effort, had gone from certainty, through struggle, finally ending in desperation and defeat. Posters produced by the Allies followed a similar, though flipped pattern. Early Soviet Union posters exhorted the people to kill, destroy and annihilate the Germans. At the end of the war Soviet posters were filled with smiling faces and positive slogans. The same pattern held true for the United States and Great Britain. This trend illustrates an important connection between the rhetoric and imagery of poster propaganda, and the conduct of the war. Propaganda, though intended to manipulate public opinion, stir emotion and indoctrinate the viewer, at the same time inadvertently conveyed the realities about the conduct of the war. This thesis follow the style of the The American Historical Review. 1 Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War, 1939-1945: Organizations, Policies and Publics in Britain and Germany (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), 421. 2 Richard Taylor asserted that the purpose of propaganda is to fill the void between the government and the people.2 It sought to bring the will of the people into line with the will of the government, reversing the belief that the government exists to fulfill the will of the people. British artist Cyril Kenneth Bird (who produced World War II posters under the pen name Fougasse) asserted that the aim of propaganda posters was to overcome three obstacles: first, a general aversion to reading any notice of any sort; second, a general disinclination to believe that any notice, even if it was read, could possibly addressed to oneself; third, a general unwillingness, even so, to remember the message long enough to do anything about it.3 The best form of propaganda before the advent of television was the poster. No other medium could reach out to passers-by, grab them, hold their attention, communicate dozens of thoughts (sometimes in less than five words), appeal to their deepest, heartfelt emotions, and do it in less than ten seconds. Speeches and broadcasts might be forgotten within a matter of hours, newspapers were replaced daily and involved time and effort to read. Posters, on the other hand, were simple, constant, catching, and could be digested by anyone, literate or not. Fundamentally, propaganda was primarily targeted at those on the lower rungs of the social ladder. Even in democracies such as America, where the government placed more faith in the people, government officials made comments that “it would be wonderful indeed if the psychological war could be fought on an 2 Richard Taylor, “Goebbels and the Function of Propaganda.” in Nazi Propaganda: The Power and the Limitations, ed. David Welch (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1983). 3 Kenneth Rendall, A Selection from the Exhibition with Weapons and Wits: Propaganda and Psychological Warfare in World War II (Wellesley, MA: Overlord Press, 1992), 12. 3 intellectual basis, if the American people who will win or lose this war were so educated and conditioned that we could bring them understanding on the terms we all prefer. But…they unfortunately are not so educated.”4 In Mein Kampf, Hitler spelled out the necessary conditions that propaganda must meet in order to be successful. First, he asserted that propaganda caters to the largely uneducated masses, not the intellectuals. The common citizen is more likely to act, or rather react, based on emotion. Propaganda, therefore, had to appeal to the deepest emotions of the typical citizen. It had to be simple and contain as few words as possible because the average working-class individual was not capable of comprehending long, logic-based arguments.5 To succeed propaganda had to be repeated over and over.6 Hitler was correct when he stated that propaganda, in the hands of an expert, is indeed a frightful weapon.7 Lenin, like Hitler, also believed the masses were incapable of understanding their own interests without help and advocated the use of propaganda.8 Posters are the most ideal form of propaganda because their messages can be communicated to anyone and everyone. Additionally, their permanence and relative inexpensive production costs made them economical propaganda tools. Movie-goers have to buy a ticket, readers had to purchase books and newspapers, and radios must be bought to hear broadcasts. Posters, on the other hand, are available to the public for free. 4 As quoted in William Bird and Harry Rubenstein, Produce for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998), 31. 5 Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), 179-181. 6 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 185. 7 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 179. 8 Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State, 6. 4 This study is an analysis of the propaganda posters of the four major nations involved in the European Theatre of Operations during the Second World War. It is not concerned so much with the people and organizations involved in the printing and distribution of posters, although by necessity these subjects are touched on briefly. By sampling the vast oceans of posters generated by these nations and examining them chronologically, this study identifies general themes and trends as well as those that are unique to the country that produced them. Do totalitarian and democratic states have similar strategies and emphases as other totalitarian and democratic states? Can themes and trends be drawn along Axis/Allied lines? Why did Britain and the United States produce fewer negatively-themed posters than Germany or the Soviet Union? This study is as much about how culture and the war affected propaganda posters as it about how propaganda posters affected culture and the war. There already exists a substantial number of books and articles on the creation and use of propaganda, especially in the Second World War, but most of these works focus on the administrators and organizations of propaganda and focus on a single nation rather than a comparison of several.